Ranged Combat
Ranged Combat is used far more often in the future than in the past. With guns being cheap and armor making most melee combat obsolete, characters need to be ready to take on foes with lots of long range capability. Attack Roll An attack roll represents a character’s attempts to strike an opponent on the character’s turn in a round. When a character makes an attack roll, he or she rolls 1d20 and adds his or her attack bonus. If the result equals or beats the target’s Defense, the character hits and deals damage. Many modifiers can affect the attack roll. A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on the attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also always a threat — a possible critical hit. If the character is not proficient in the weapon he or she is attacking with (the character doesn’t have the appropriate Weapon Proficiency feat), that character takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Attack Bonus With a ranged weapon, a character’s attack bonus is: Base Attack Bonus + Dexterity modifier + Range Penalty + Size Modifier Aiming A Character may take extra time to take aim. For every round she takes to aim, she gains a +1 to aiming up to a total of +3 (for 3 rounds). Dexterity Modifier Dexterity measures coordination and steadiness, so a character’s Dexterity modifier applies when the character attacks with a ranged weapon. Range Penalty The range penalty for a ranged weapon depends on what weapon the character is using and how far away the target is. All ranged weapons and thrown weapons have a range increment (see Table: Ranged Weapons and Table: Melee Weapons). Any attack from a distance of less than one range increment is not penalized for range. All attacks made beyond the first are penalized according to the total distance and the type of weapon. For ballistic weapons, every range increment past the first is the length of the previous increment plus the base increment. In simpler terms, the third increment would be 3 times the base and the 5th increment would be 5 times the base. Thrown weapons, bow and arrow and otherwise low velocity weapons maintain their base increment. Then there is the drop effect (or in the case of laser weapons, diffusion). Every gun has its own drop rate and all sorts of things can affect it. Hand guns drop after 2 increments (this is also to account for the short aiming base the user has). Rifles, SMGs, and Assault rifles drop after 4 increments. Sniper rifles tend to go even further. Having feat like far shot and having ammo like high velocity rounds changed the effective increments as well as the drop. When drop takes place, there is an additional -1 to every range increment past the drop increment. Energy weapons do not experience drop, but do suffer the penalties of entropy (diffusion, energy loss, and cool off). Energy weapons begin to take a percentile damage loss starting at the 5th range increment beginning with 5% and addition 5% every range increment out until it loses power (at the 24th increment). This is the standard “max range” of the weapon. It can be modified by weapon gadgets. Finally there is no maximum distance to ballistic weapons. Bows and otherwise low velocity weapons have a max range of 10 increments. Thrown weapons, have a max range of 5 increments. The environment may have an effect on weapon projectiles. Heavy rain increases damage drop off of energy weapons and increases drop penalties of ballistic weapons; high winds increase range penalties of ballistics; low gravity reduces drop penalties of ballistic weapons but high gravity increases drop penalties of ballistic weapons; smoke increase damage reduction of energy weapons. Important Note: Weapon Gadgets can greatly effect a weapons performance. Please see the revised weapon and ammo gadgets for information. Special Note: Plasma weapons that shoot a ball in a line use an artificial gravity well that diminishes over time and stops at the first substantial solid object or until the gravity well diminishes and the plasma cools off. Size Modifier Creature size categories are defined differently from the size categories for weapons and other objects. Since this size modifier applies to Defense against a melee weapon attack or a ranged weapon attack, two creatures of the same size strike each other normally, regardless of what size they actually are. Creature sizes are compatible with vehicle sizes. Damage When a character hits with a weapon, he or she deals damage according to the type of weapon. Effects that modify weapon damage also apply to unarmed strikes and the natural physical attack forms of creatures. Damage is deducted from the target’s current hit points. Minimum Weapon Damage If penalties to damage bring the damage result below 1, a hit still deals 1 point of damage. Multiplying Damage Sometimes damage is multiplied by some factor. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Bonus damage represented as extra dice is an exception. Do not multiply bonus damage dice when a character scores a critical hit. Critical Hits When a character makes an attack roll and gets a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), the character hits regardless of the target’s Defense, and the character has scored a threat of a critical hit. To find out if it is actually a critical hit, the character immediately makes another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll that scored the threat. If the second roll also results in a hit against the target’s Defense, the attack is a critical hit. (The second roll just needs to hit to confirm a critical hit; the character doesn’t need to roll a second 20.) If the second roll is a miss, then the attack just deals the damage of a regular hit. A critical hit multiplies the character’s damage. Unless otherwise specified, the multiplier is x2. (It is possible for some weapons to have higher multipliers, doing more damage on a critical hit.) Some weapons have expanded threat ranges, making a critical hit more likely. However, even with these weapons, only a 20 is an automatic hit. The Critical column on Table: Ranged Weapons and Table: Melee Weapons indicates the threat range for each weapon on the tables. Bonus damage represented as extra dice is not multiplied when a character scores a critical hit. Objects (including vehicles) and some types of creatures are immune to critical hits. A 20 is always a successful hit, but deals no extra damage against these targets. Category:Combat